salute ➳ 〚h.s.〛 〚a.u.〛

chapter 19 - horrendous hangovers & meaningful milkshakes

"Martin, I swear to god, if you don't turn that shit off right now, I'm going to hack your phone and post all of those selfies you take with your cat on the MI6 home page."

"You don't like Celine Dion?"

"No, I don't fucking like Celine Dion."

"Someone is a grumpy grouch today."

She wasn't a grumpy grouch. She was hungover. So hungover that she was convinced that her brain had just swollen up and was now trying to push itself free of its bony prison, encased in her skull. At least, that was the only explanation she could come up with for this head pain which was so severe that every movement, every blink of her fucking eyes, made her want to vomit.

She might have overdone it the night before. After her and Harry had snogged in the street for much longer than they should have, Piper managed to convince Harry to come back into the bar and have a dance. Once they were in there, she shoved him toward the VIP section and offered to buy him a second Manhattan. At the bar, she'd also ordered another two shots because she was feeling too sober after being outside and she had been having a lot more fun when she was plastered. Except this time she was buying her own drinks so she was stuck with Smirnoff.

It was a terrible decision, one that she paid for last night when she was vomiting her guts up and Harry was scolding her while he held back her hair – as if the vomiting wasn't bad enough on its own – and one that she continued to pay for today because she was working a long shift. She'd gotten about twenty minutes of quality sleep before Harry was shaking her awake.

She'd fallen asleep twice at her desk, only to be woken up by her idiotic coworkers. Fuck the lot of them. She was so done with this place. At one point she'd tried to sneak out and just go home but Q, who hardly ever wandered down to T branch, had pulled her aside to compliment her on her handling of the mission in Turkey that happened weeks ago. She barely even remembered what had happened yesterday, never mind two weeks before, so the conversation was mostly Q talking and her nodding along like she knew what he was saying. It ended with him personally escorting her back to her desk which pretty much shut down any hopes of escaping this hell hole.

And now Martin, the fucking imbecile, was playing Celine Dion music. Out loud. Like that wasn't a socially reprehensible thing.

If he didn't find a way to be less annoying in the next ten seconds, she was going to kill him.

No joke.

She let her forehead fall to her desk, praying for death. The cool metal beneath her head was sort of nice so she covered her ears with her hands and just sort of lay there. She was hoping that if she wished hard enough, she would magically poof back to her flat where she could have a hot bath, put on her snuggly pyjamas and sleep for the next three days.

"Oi, get up. You're supposed to be working."

Piper groaned at the familiar voice, not in the mood for the perky blond face she knew she would be seeing if she had her eyes open. She swatted her hand behind her, hoping it would make him go away. Instead, his hand jammed under her forehead and dragged her head upright. A new pain sprung up behind her eyes at the movement and she had to put a lot of effort into not leaning over and throwing up all over Niall's shoes.

"What're you doing here?" Piper asked in a croaky voice sore from vomiting most of the morning. She didn't think the One Direction boys were going to be working on New Year's Day. It felt like she was the only one unlucky enough to be stuck with a shift on a stat holiday – except of course for Martin but the wanker probably asked for the shift. Not like he had anyone to celebrate with anyways, not with his personality.